May 29th 2022
Chapter 149
Our Participation in Leading
Lucas knew this land. It existed in his mind, loaded with so many memories, of so many years… It was his childhood and his adulthood, his family as someone's child and his family as someone's father, five and soon six times over. He had found his place in the world here, and he was as happy now showing up every morning as he'd been whenever his parents would drive him there. And before very long, all of this land and its components would be in his care. Every last part of it… Sometimes, it still didn't seem real, or possible.
Whenever he had the chance, and if ever he needed to clear his head, he would walk the land. He would follow one path or another, each as familiar to him as the last, as they should. Many times, he would stop and smile to himself for a moment, thinking of his daughters. Ella was a different case, grown as she was, and the triplets were still a bit young to really take it all in, but they would get there. For now, it was mostly Marianne, and it was Tori, too. He'd take his daughter and granddaughter around with him, whenever he had the chance, and he would show them Sullivan Stables. Every once in a while, he would get to show them some element or another that they had either never seen or never really stopped to take the time and observe in earnest.
He would always be mindful of not doing those 'reveals' too often, would try and spread them out as much as possible so they wouldn't run out too quickly. And as much as he would smile, thinking about when he did show them something new, it wouldn't be long that he'd just stop and think of the other side of this… endeavor. He could never run out of things to show them, not technically, not unless he got up the nerve. Otherwise, he would someday have shown them every corner… but one.
It wasn't remarkable, not to the unknowing eye, but to him… Even before he'd known what had once stood on this one patch of land, he'd felt an unspeakable dread about it, like it was haunted. He still remembered what that had all felt like, just as he remembered how much his friends had given him a hard time over his 'ghosts.' But it had felt so real to him, and in time he'd found out why. That was where the old stable had once stood, the one that had burned down and been the cause of Simon Sullivan's death. His grandfather… his mother's father, taken from her before she could even really know him.
Sometimes he'd try and tell himself that he needed to get over this, that it shouldn't bother him as it did. He was nearly thirty-four years old, and he was scared of a fenced off piece of land? None of them ever did anything about it either, so am I being that unreasonable? He would walk past there, in his treks around the property. He would sort of make himself draw nearer, to try and see if it still bothered him, and it did… It always did. All he could do was shake his head to himself, as though it would convince him that he was being silly, and he would actually go there… Next time… Not now…
This wasn't a universal experience, was it? Plenty of people – visitors, riders, mostly, less so employees – would walk along the fence, sometimes stop, and chat while leaning against it. Some would cross the fence, walk across the untouched land, but this primarily to tend to it. Someone had to, right? Otherwise, it would have been allowed to grow wild in all these decades. There was no real point to cross the fence for any other reason, so people generally wouldn't, but he knew that some of them would get curious, wondering what the place was and why it was fenced off like this. At first, they might assume that it was being prepared for some new structure that would be built, but when enough time would go by, and they'd realize that nothing had happened except a bit of landscape care…
He'd have to tell them someday, wouldn't he? The girls… This was part of their family's history, as tragic as it had been. If they spent enough time in the archive – and why wouldn't they, with how much they loved Carson – they would eventually hear the story of Simon and the fire, and they might piece it together. He couldn't assume this for the triplets just yet, but Marianne, oh… His girl had that clever spark in her, and it worked very well. He wouldn't put it past her to figure it out someday, sooner rather than later.
"Made it this far today, huh?" He was startled as he turned and found Juliet walking up to meet him. He was all of two steps away from the fence. If he reached his hand up, he could touch it, but he hadn't… wouldn't… couldn't…
"I was just thinking, I didn't even…" he explained, taking a few conscious steps back and eventually turning to walk in the opposite direction. Juliet followed him. "You don't think I'm being weird about this, do you?"
"No, not at all," Juliet assured him. "Your grandmother was the same way. She never made it as far as you did, that's for sure." He spared a thought for Marianne the first. If it was bad for him, he could only imagine what it was like for her, recalling the night when she'd lost the first great love of her life.
"I keep thinking about my girls when I'll tell them about all this someday," he explained, and again Juliet slowly nodded, showing how she understood his struggle.
"You know, food for thought… Your grandmother, in later years, she had meant to try and do something about the area, to sort of… reclaim it. She never got around to it, and after she passed, I just… It didn't feel right for me to do anything about it. She and I were great friends, in a lot of ways we did see each other as family, but… you're her family, Lucas. If anyone should take on that project, it should be you." Her words rang through his head, and he didn't know what to make of them, not in the moment. "You don't have to do anything with this, not straightaway, it's all up to you to decide, but whatever you do decide, if you want to honor that wish, I will support it."
"Thanks, I… I'll think about it," Lucas told her, and Juliet smiled. After a few more steps, setting aside one conversation, he realized and spoke his thought all at once. "Were you looking for me, or…"
"Yes, I was," Juliet tapped his arm and pointed at him. Thanks for reminding me. "I have a… situation… I need your help with."
"What is it?" Lucas asked, as good as saying 'of course, what do you need?'
"I'm going to be away for two weeks, leaving in the morning," Juliet revealed, and Lucas paused. Had he heard her right? But…
"In the morning, you… But what about…"
"The competition, yes, I know, but you are more than capable, and I know that everything will be in good hands while I'm gone," she smiled.
"Well, sure, I wasn't…" he tried to reply, but at the same time he knew that he wouldn't necessarily have been speaking honestly. As much as he'd been taking his place around the ranch, for a moment when he'd found himself looking at the possibility of flying solo, he'd felt sort of startled all at once, like he'd been when she'd approached him at the fence. Now this felt silly, and he was able to walk himself back from that mindset. Of course, he could do this. "Where are you going? Is everything…"
"Oh, yes, it's nothing bad, not at all. I'm going on vacation," she announced with a grin. This caught him by surprise again, only this time with a chuckle.
"Sounds good," he agreed. He could have pointed out that it was a strange timing, as it would mean that she'd miss the competition, but he knew without her ever having said it out loud that they'd come to feel like more of a hassle to her than anything else by now. Oh, she loved the place, always had, but she'd always been more set on the business side of things, and he respected that about her. "Where are you going?"
"Norway… Always wanted to go," Juliet revealed with a smile that could have served to pass on the tail end of her response without her speaking it aloud. "I realize I could have waited until after I officially hand you the keys, but then I thought to myself… why wait? I did wait, long enough, and who knows what could come next? It would be… a genuine regret, if I didn't get to go, and I don't want to have any of those."
"Neither would I," Lucas nodded. "I'll look after everything here while you're gone," he promised.
"I never doubted that you would," Juliet assured him. "But seeing as I still haven't packed up my office for good just yet, I am still in charge, so let's just head back there so I can catch you up on what you'll need to know and do while I'm gone."
"Let's go," Lucas offered his arm, and she took it. He turned his head back toward the fence as they distanced themselves from it. Juliet's words were still in his mind, and he doubted they would be very far now, whenever he saw this place until… We will do something, we have to…
He thought of his mother. She never liked to walk by here either and she may not have been vocal about it, but her actions as good as screamed it. She would go out of her way – literally – so not to come by the area unless she absolutely had to, and even then… It wasn't just that this was the place where her father had died, though that in itself would have been enough. Just about anyone who'd walk by there, whether they knew the story or not, would be taken by this foreboding feeling. Maybe it was the fence, the way it seemed to close away this area like it was an anomaly, not belonging to Sullivan Stables. Once you added the actual story, it got to feel even more weighted, heavy. Add on to that the connection Melinda had with the place and the victim it had claimed… She'd been too small to know him, smaller than the triplets were now, but she'd grown up in that aftermath, in her mother's grief, in the grief of her parents' friends and colleagues… It had been a dark time for Sullivan Stables. But still they thrived… They're still standing today… and so is this dread.
When he got home that evening, he told Maya and the girls about his day, as he would, but he kept the whole tale of the fence for when it was just him and his wife, settling in for bed. He'd gone to crouch there before her as she sat, taking a moment to commune with their unborn babe, and he'd had to share this small burden. He needed to do something about the area, and he appreciated Juliet choosing to leave that task to the family, but to him this counted Maya, too, and for an activity of the sort, who better to brainstorm with?
"Take your time. I know you'll find the answer," Maya assured him, brushing at his hair as he sat there, his head at her belly. "And when you do, I'll do all I can to help you make it happen."
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
